• Although cocaine use became widespread in the 19th century once it was synthesized into cocaine hydrochloride salts, Europeans knew of the coca plant’s stimulating effects since the early 15th century.
• A new study of 17th-century remains from a crypt in Milan shows traces of an active component of the coca plant in the subjects’ brain tissue.
• This suggests Europeans used coca leaves earlier than previously thought and is the earliest evidence of such drug use on the European continent.

Of the approximately 200 members in the genus Erythroxylum, most species contain the central nervous system stimulant tropane alkaloid, known more commonly as cocaine. Because the plant is endemic to South America, indigenous groups throughout the…